Population genomic assessment of Australian Blacklip Abalone for abalone viral ganglioneuritis (AVG) resistance

Funded Activity Summary

AVG remains the greatest threat to the economic viability and stability of the abalone industry in south-eastern Australia. As a consequence, there is an urgent need for strategic research aimed at determining the likely vulnerability of fisheries to future AVG outbreaks and providing managers with the necessary tools for biosecuring wild and farmed stocks at regional, state and national scales. The fact that some animals from AVG affected wild stocks survived the disease outbreak suggests they were either fortunate enough to have avoided coming into contact with the virus or are genetically resistant to the disease. A research program aimed at characterising AVG resistance in Australian wild abalone fisheries is expected to provide benefits to wild and farm fisheries at a national scale. If AVG resistance is present in wild abalone stocks, and its genetic basis can be characterised, there will be unique opportunities to: 1) Rapidly and cost-effectively screen stocks across all wild fisheries to determine the spatial prevalence of resistant genotypes and to gain an understanding of how biosecure wild abalone stocks are likely to be in the event of AVG re-emergence 2) Biosecure wild stocks through the movement of animals from ‘AVG resistant’ to ‘AVG vulnerable’ stocks as part of future restocking and translocation activities 3) Biosecure farm stocks across all states of Australia through the establishment of an AVG resistance breeding program This project involves a direct partnership with AAGA, ACA and VFA and is expected to provide much needed insights into the vulnerability of abalone stocks to future AVG outbreaks, and the tools needed to bolster the biosecurity of wild and farmed abalone stocks. As a result, this project has the potential to dramatically improve the economic viability of this rapidly expanding industry.

Objectives:
1. This project will leverage the support of the abalone wild harvest and aquaculture industries, and the Victorian state government to determine if genetic resistance to the AVG virus persists in Australian wild blacklip abalone fisheries. This project will adopt state-of-the-art population genomic technologies to contrast genomic profiles of 350 individual abalone distributed across AVG affected and unaffected blacklip abalone stocks from Victorian Western and Central zone fisheries. Genomic variants differentiating animals from AVG affected and unaffected source stocks are expected to be indicative of a selective sweep and AVG resistance. Genomic variants associated with AVG resistance will act as the necessary markers for surveying the virus resilience/vulnerability of wild fishing stocks, and biosecuring wild fishing and farm stocks by providing a basis for a future virus resistance breeding program.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 15-07-2019

End Date: 30-10-2020

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $165,700.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

AVG | Biosecurity | RAC TAS | RAC VIC

Related Links